Inside the Ward: A Study of Panem's Mentally Ill
by frombluetored
Summary: When college senior Finnick Odair decides to write his senior thesis on Capitol Institute, the largest and most controversial mental hospital in Panem, Florida, he is given the opportunity of a lifetime: to see it from the inside. He checks himself in for a sixth-month stay, unaware of the magnitude of the things he's about to discover or the people he's about to meet. AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/n: **The idea came to me and it was too interesting not to give it a try. This is AU, so it is obviously not following any rules of the Hunger Games world, and likewise isn't following every rule of this world either ;) I don't think I've ever written an AU before, so I'll see how this goes and go from there. Regardless, happy reading!

* * *

It all started when a quarter fell from a young man's hand.

It had been in the sweaty and nervous palm of the fast walking college senior, but as he lifted his hand quickly to signal the bus to stop, it slid out of his closed fist without him noticing. He was climbing onto the bus when he felt a hand grab onto his arm.

He spun around immediately, his heart picking up pace, and stared in confusion at the man in front of him. He had on torn, damp clothes and reeked of fish water and bad hygiene. His hair was in disarray, ruined from too long in the sun and sand, and he had the trademark blistered skin of one of Panem, Florida's many homeless citizens.

The bus driver reeved the engine impatiently. The man on the bus yanked his arm free from the homeless man, trying not to feel guilty that he couldn't help him. Even if he had the time, he didn't have the money, and he felt himself getting annoyed at himself for his indifference. But then the homeless man in front of him lifted up his hand, and before the bus driver yelled at the man to either get on the bus or get off, he caught sight of two things. The first was the quarter, sitting innocently in the dirty palm of his hand. And the other was his tongue-less mouth as he tried to say something to him.

Reeling away from the homeless man in shock and disgust, he scrambled back up onto the bus and quickly handed the bus driver his pass card. He pretended that his heart wasn't pounding as he walked to the back of the bus, ignoring the questioning glances of all the other Floridians. He pressed his forehead against the fogged up glass of the window and asked himself questions he didn't know the answer to. Questions like: _why was the homeless man offering him a quarter? And where did his tongue go?_

He let himself ponder those things for only a few more minutes, and then he was nervously surfing the internet on his phone again. He was only thirty minutes away from his first meeting with Dr. Abernathy and Dr. Mags, and he still had no better idea of what he wanted to do his thesis on than he did at the last meeting. Dr. Mags would give him another extension, no doubt, but Dr. Abernathy was more likely to skin him alive.

He stowed his phone away when the bus arrived at his stop. He hurried off, nervous and guilty, and almost ran right into a huddled mass of gray on the sidewalk in front of the college gate. He yelped and jumped quickly to the left, changing his path so as not to step on the person, and then he hurriedly leaned down.

"Are you okay?" He asked. The sky was darkening and another peal of thunder rang out. He wished for the first time today that Panem would actually do something about the homelessness problem instead of remodeling the city hall for the thirteenth time.

The woman on the sidewalk lifted her head. Her eyes were dark and tear-filled, and when she opened her mouth to reply, he was better prepared for what he saw this time. He stared at the eerie emptiness, his eyes seeking the nub in the very back of her throat, and he felt faint.

"Ma'am," he said quickly, his heart pounding. But then he stopped, because he couldn't very well ask her why her tongue was missing. But he was sick, because he knew enough to know that this is not a coincidence. It isn't a coincidence that he stumbled upon two homeless people in Panem, both missing their tongues.

He stood up again, ignoring the rain that began falling in cold droplets on his face. And then he pulled his phone from his pocket again and dialed a familiar number.

"This is Scarlet, secretary of the Sociology department at Panem University. How can I help you?"

"Scarlet, can you put me on with Dr. Mags?" He asked.

"Sure thing, Finnick. Hold on one second, let me check and make sure she's in her office."

Finnick listened to the overtly familiar classical tune as she put the phone on hold. He tapped his foot and pulled the hood of his jacket up over his head as the rain began pouring down with more force. When he heard his mentor's voice, he was relieved.

"Dr. Mags, I was wondering if we could postpone the meeting for another hour." He asked. "It's very important. It has to do with my thesis."

* * *

Finnick was loaded with a heavy secret.

He ducked into a small café downtown and slid into the booth closest to the door. He barely acknowledged the waitress when she came by for his drink order.

He pulled a notebook from his bookbag and opened it to a blank page. And then he uncapped a pen and held it in his hand. But all he did from that point on was stare at the page, the sound of the rain and the humidity of the small café somehow numbing his disgust.

The waitress brought him a cup of coffee. He distractedly dumped some sugar cubes into it.

When the waitress handed him the check, she frowned at him.

"You sure seem a thousand miles away." She said.

He handed her her money and didn't reply. He wasn't a thousand miles away. In fact, he was only about a mile away, reliving a conversation he had just had with one of the many homeless people he managed to see when he was actually looking for them. They blended into the masses before, but now that he was aware of their presence, they were everywhere. On the benches, under the bridges, outside of bars, huddled under bus stops. And they all had two things in common: they were homeless and tongue-less. And only a mile away was where Finnick had found the other thing they all had in common: they were released from Capitol Institute.

The conversation he had, that he couldn't shake from his head or even write down, took place without words.

"I have seen so many of you. And you're all missing your tongues. Who did this to you?" He had asked, desperate to understand. He felt a strange mix of horror and excitement, the way you feel when you know you're about to catch onto something huge and potentially life-changing that no one else has yet.

The homeless woman in question, with wide, drafty eyes, wordlessly handed him a soaking wet, folded up piece of paper. Finnick took it from her hesitantly. He tore it a few times as he tried to carefully unfold it, but the tears didn't make it unreadable.

"This is a discharge form. From Capitol Institute." He said outloud. He looked at the woman. She only grimaced when he said the words. "Were you a patient there?" He asked.

He knew it was a dumb question, but he had to clarify. She nodded after a moment's hesitation.

"And the rest? They were too?" He asked.

The background noise of the city, the honking of the cars and the roaring of the waves and the shrieking of the seagulls, became unpleasantly loud as he waited for her answer. She opened her mouth only to close it, seemingly remembering just a little too late that she couldn't answer a question like that ever again. She nodded once.

"They did this to you there?" He asked.

But her eyes were filling with tears too quickly, and she was choking on the words she could not longer say. He walked away from her shaking form, his shoulders tense and his eyes too bright.

* * *

"Oh, look who decided to grace us with his presence!"

Dr. Abernathy's hair was unrulier than ever when Finnick walked into his office. He was seated in his wooden chair behind his desk, his arms crossed over his chest and an expectant smirk on his face. Dr. Mags was seated at the sofa in front of the desk. Finnick quickly sat down beside her, depositing his soaked bookbag and jacket on the floor beside the sofa.

"Hello, Dr. Abernathy." Finnick said sourly. He then turned and smiled at Dr. Mags. "Hello!"

She grinned back. Finnick knew she was fond of him, even more so than the other students. He had really taken to her subject and found a similar zeal for it as she had. Finnick had also found a love for government, or maybe it was just the grouchy head of the department's deep desire to throw it over that wooed him. Either way, he ended up a Sociology and Government double major. He hadn't regretted it yet.

"Well, meeting number two. Let's hear it." Dr. Abernathy said. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and peering at Finnick. Dr. Mags looked at him too, her wrinkled face curious, and Finnick nervously grabbed onto the notebook in his lap. Inside, he had only managed to write two words. Two words to sum up his discovery today. _Capitol Institution. _

"I want to do my thesis on Capitol Institution."

The office was silent for a few long moments. And then Dr. Abernathy burst into hysterical laughter.

"Are you insane?" He guffawed. "The Cuckoo Capital?"

Finnick stared coolly at him, trying not to let the cracks in his resolve show. Dr. Mags nervously cleared her throat.

"Well, Finnick, it is certainly a _brave_ choice—

"I saw something today." He interrupted her abruptly. His heart began pounding and his hands began to sweat. "Have you ever looked at the homeless people? Really looked at them?"

He examined both their faces. Dr. Mags and Dr. Abernathy exchanged a quick glance and then looked back at Finnick uneasily.

He started to feel very uncomfortable and very lied to.

"They are missing their tongues," he said weakly, even though he could tell at this point that both were aware of this.

Dr. Abernathy was not smiling for once.

"We know."

Finnick looked from his somber face to Dr. Mags' concerned one.

"How many people know? How come no one notices?" He asked.

"Because no one notices the homeless. No one cares. They fade into the background and become just part of the scenery." Dr. Mags said. "It's blunt and harsh, but think about it. It's true. We've talked about this a lot in class. As for whom all knows, a few other faculty members do. It was first discovered by Dr. Abernathy, though. He shared it with a few of us."

Finnick looked at Dr. Abernathy.

"Have you called the police?"

When Dr. Abernathy smirked, Finnick felt even more uncomfortable. He sometimes got flashes when Dr. Abernathy grinned like that, so self-assuredly, flashes from his childhood and the past he didn't want to remember. Flashes of big, sweaty hands and whispered threats and crying and begging and pleading and—

"Do you know who owns and runs Capitol Institute, Finnick?" Dr. Abernathy asked.

Finnick hid his shaking hands underneath his legs.

"The City, Dr. Abernathy?" He shot back.

"Precisely. And who owns the City?"

Dr. Abernathy reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out his infamous flask. Finnick stared at the familiar etching of a goose on the sleek, silver surface and then gave the answer that everyone knew, but no one was really allowed to say.

"Mayor Snow."

"And who controls Mayor Snow?" Dr. Abernathy asked.

Finnick dropped his eyes to the carpet. Dr. Abernathy took a swig of his flask.

"No one. Mayor Snow owns every large corporation in the United States. He owns everything."

"So you do listen in class."

A silence fell over them. Finnick was exhausted and suddenly he didn't even care at all about his thesis, or about graduating.

"We have to do something." He said quietly. "At least know what's going on. So we can't do anything about it. Fine. But someone should know. I just can't stand the fact that hundreds of people walk by them every day."

The Capitol Institute hadn't escaped the public's attention in whole. It was nicknamed the Cuckoo Capital and had the reputation of being a metaphorical final resting place for the mentally insane. It was said that anyone who checked in never checked out. They went in and died there. Most of the people of Panem, Florida saw it as a good thing, a great thing. Those beyond help were given a place to rest, a place to stay. But now Finnick was seeing what they couldn't: that there was something more to this. That something went on; something caused them to cut out tongues and discharge people. Or cut out their tongues before they discharged them, so they couldn't ever speak of what was happening in there.

"We've talked about this in secret, the faculty members that is. And we know there's only one thing we really can do at this point. We have to make the public aware. We have to thoroughly investigate and present our case with so much evidence that not even the most extravagant lawyer in the country can dismiss the case. We need witnesses; we need to see what goes on in there. But the problem is that no one comes out. The only ones who do are not even in the records of having ever been there once they're gone, and, as you saw, are rendered speechless for the rest of their lives."

Finnick grasped the back of his head and breathed slowly through his mouth, wishing he had never decided to get up early to go downtown for breakfast this morning.

"You say you want a thesis, boy?" Dr. Abernathy said suddenly, his voice sparked with a newfound energy. Finnick lifted his head slowly. Dr. Abernathy continued. "You do it. Check yourself in. Pretend you're unstable, see what goes on. Write about it. If you want a way to guarantee a seat in grad school, this is it."

Finnick gaped at him. Dr. Mags chided.

"Haymitch! He's just a boy!"

"Just a boy? He's about to graduate. If he wants to be a journalist and write about this stuff then he can—"

"That is totally different and you know it! This is potentially life threatening! And besides, do you think Mayor Snow would let that get published in this city's newspaper?!"

"Well of course not! We send it to fellow professors around the country via email. Just another college student's thesis should go relatively unnoticed through the technological scanners. And once they have it, they get it to the right people. And that's when it's exposed and something can be done."

Finnick's head was starting to ache from their bickering. Dr. Mags shot back at him, leaning further toward the desk. Dr. Abernathy was practically standing up at this point.

"What makes you think they would care? They don't care now! No one cares now! They walk past them like they're not even _human_—"

"Because, Mags. If we make them see it, they can no longer pretend they don't. And then they have to make a decision. Do they ignore the homeless, knowing everyone knows they know, or do they at least pretend to care in order to look good to their peers? You're the sociologist. You tell me."

Dr. Mags fell silent. Finnick knew Dr. Abernathy had a very valid point.

"This—it's not legal. If they found out he was faking…they could kill him. How could we stay in touch with him?" Dr. Mags asked helplessly.

Dr. Abernathy looked at Finnick then.

"We'll deal with that in due time. We have some of the country's best minds here, we can figure it out. Dr. Beetee can create just about any device that can surpass Panem's security measures." He answered her, still examining Finnick. Finally, he addressed him. "Would this be something you'd want to do, Finnick?"

But Finnick couldn't agree to something like that until he knew exactly what he was agreeing to.

"I don't know. Can I email you tomorrow and let you know? I need to get some air." He asked, anxiety weaving into his voice.

Dr. Abernathy nodded, his gray eyes hard. Finnick rose unsteadily to his feet and hoisted his bookbag up onto his shoulders. His hand was on the doorknob when Dr. Abernathy's voice stopped him.

"Remember, Finnick. You've seen them now. There's no unseeing them."

* * *

That night, Finnick ran his tongue along all his teeth and counted them.

He tried to say his name with his tongue shoved all the way in the back of his throat.

He almost cried when he heard the sounds he made.

The next morning, when he reached into his jacket pocket to grab his change to buy his morning vending-machine cinnamon bun, he found he was short a quarter.

He stared at his dumbstruck reflection in the glass of the vending machine as he realized what that first homeless man had been trying to say all along.

* * *

"You can't tell anyone. I mean it." He repeated.

Johanna slammed her fist down on the table in frustration.

"I get it, Odair! You've repeated that at least a dozen times since we got in here. And you shoved towels in the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor."

Finnick looked at the crack underneath the bathroom floor, wondering for the first time if maybe that was a bit excessive. He decided it was better safe than sorry.

"I'm going undercover for six months for my senior thesis." He told her, his voice equally scared and excited.

Johanna stared at him with a bored expression for a few extended moments, and then burst into howling laughter.

"You slay me!" She shrieked.

Finnick observed his best friend with a frown. She slapped her palm against her thigh and continued to laugh.

"I'm not kidding, Jo. I'm leaving in a week. I'm checking myself into Capitol Institute." He told her.

Her laughter tampered off pretty quickly.

"What the fuck, Finnick. You aren't a psychology major." She told him.

He scowled at her. "Don't you think I know that?" He demanded.

She shoved his shoulder, glaring herself. "Obviously not! Otherwise, why would you be doing such a stupid thing? What are you even studying exactly?"

Finnick ran a hand through his bronze curls nervously.

"The title of the research will be something like _Inside the Ward: A Study of Panem's Mentally Ill."_

Johanna rolled her eyes. "Shit title. Why'd you answer me like that?"

Johanna never missed a beat, and Finnick wasn't surprised. They became friends their freshman year and were stuck like glue since then. Johanna was a Forestry major and French minor who insisted she chose her areas of study based on the fact that she liked F-words. Finnick liked her spunkiness, her bluntness, and soon they found a likeliness in each other that helped cultivate a deep friendship. It was the deepness of that friendship that helped Johanna to see he was keeping something from her right now.

"What I'm going to tell you is a secret between us. A Finnick and Johanna secret." Finnick said. "I'm serious. This is really grave stuff."

Johanna nodded, serious for once.

"Okay. I won't tell." She promised.

* * *

Finnick spent forty-eight hours getting coached by the head of the psychology department, Dr. Trinket.

She carefully constructed the perfect role for Finnick, one that the psychiatrists at the ward would believe. She taught him what to say, how to say it, what ways to hold his shoulders as he walks, what information to give away and what to keep safe.

She grasped onto Dr. Abernathy's forearm as Finnick stepped onto the city bus, with nothing but a coat on his back. He waved to them all as the bus pulled away—Dr. Mags, Johanna, Dr. Abernathy, Dr. Effie—and found himself thankful he didn't have a family to miss. He didn't have a family to miss because…and that's when he stopped, because his head ached with the images and the smirks and the coarse handed men.

He pushed his hands nervously into the coat pocket during the short bus ride over. He wrapped his hands around the toothbrush in his pocket. He held it tightly the entire ride, his heart beating so quickly he felt he might throw up.

His legs were quaking as he walked up the long sidewalk. The grass around the Institute was perfectly mowed and perfectly green. The beach landscape behind the building was gorgeous as well, with the blue water almost perfectly matching the blue of the sky. But the building was the stark opposite. It towered fifteen stories into the air and was made of concrete. The windows were small and few in between, and when Finnick walked up to the doors, they were steel.

He rang the doorbell once. It opened to reveal a paranoid-looking nurse.

"Yes?"

Finnick pulled his hands from his pocket and stood straight and tall, like Dr. Trinket told him to.

"I deserve admittance." He said, his voice powerful and sure even though he felt the opposite. "I'm here to rescue you all."

The nurse looked exhausted.

"Follow me. Please clasp your hands together behind your back. Don't touch anyone. Don't stray." She muttered, repeating lines she obviously memorized years and years ago. Then she stepped back and opened the door wider, allowing him inside.

He followed after her, keeping his shoulders straight back and his head held high even though he wanted to wilt down to the floor. The walls were dark gray and the building had the upsetting odor of uncleanliness that was hastily covered with bleach. She led him into a small room and sat him down on a bench, quickly restraining his arms with a pair of restraints attached to the wall behind him. Another nurse began patting him down.

"Ah, just doing it to make sure the others don't get jealous, right?" He asks her, shooting her a cocky grin. "Wouldn't want them to know that I'm here or that I'm the best or that I'm getting special treatment. I like the way you think. Hey—don't take that!"

He stared at the toothbrush in the nurse's hand. He fought against the restraints.

"PUT THAT DOWN! PUT IT DOWN! I'M FINNICK ODAIR!"

He screamed so loudly his throat ached. The other nurse pulled the letter from his "previous psychologist" from his pocket and skimmed it. She set her palm on the other nurse's arm with a laugh.

"Oh, this explains it. Finnick Odair, 22. He was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder when he was twelve. He was diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder at age sixteen. Says on the note that he's particularly dependent on his toothbrush and can get pretty violent if forced to use another one."

The other nurse laughed coldly at him as she waved the toothbrush mockingly in front of his face. Finnick felt real anger this time.

"Oh, just give him the toothbrush. The plastic isn't hard enough to make into a shank."

Finnick forced himself not to smile victoriously as they gave it back to him.

They forced him into a wheelchair and pushed him down the hallways. He waved at everyone that passed like he saw a queen do once, when he was a boy.

"They're excited I'm here," he whispered to one of the nurses.

She pushed him unceremoniously into a doorway.

"They'll be wanting to see me, so you better make sure the door's locked." He warned the other.

She stared hard at him for a long moment.

"Right. Of course, Mr. Odair." She threw a pair of clothes at him. "Get changed. Someone will be here to get your payment information and emergency contact and allergies and all that."

He nodded and peered at her seriously, his sea green eyes wide. "Is my publicist coming?"

She blinked. "Uh, what?"

He grinned then and winked at her. He wasn't too surprised when she blushed. In Dr. Trinket's words, this route was the easiest way to go because it would be easy for people to see why he was so full of himself. He always did have girls all over him.

"Oh, I get it. Good one." He told her, lowering his voice conspiratorially.

She left looking more confused than he had ever seen anyone.

Finnick set the toothbrush carefully on top of the nightstand. It wasn't the key to keeping him nonviolent. It was simply the key to bypassing the telephone surveillance, so he could make reports to Dr. Abernathy and Dr. Mags via telephone. All thanks to the scientific genius Dr. Beetee.

Finnick sat back on the hard mattress in the corner and took in his surroundings. The bed had a threadbare blanket and starch white walls. There was a small window at the top of the wall, way too high to reach, and an empty shelf built into the wall. Nothing else. This would be his home for the next six months. He tried not to feel sick. Instead, he tried to imagine what it would be like when he got his story out, when he was published, when everyone important reached out to shake his hand, when—but then the hands of the President turned into different hands, and Finnick became faint.

He gasped against the horrifying memories as they threatened to take him under. He didn't like to think it, but he knew he didn't have to make up a reason to need psychiatric help. He's had a reason for a long time. Just not the ones that he told them.

* * *

His first morning in the Institute started with the sound of metal knocking against metal.

He jerked awake out of a surprisingly deep sleep and peered groggily at the door. The sound got louder and louder until it was right at his door and it was in the room and in his head, bouncing around and around. The door swung open a minute later to reveal large officers carrying metal sticks. They jerked their heads, telling Finnick to exit his room, and they didn't have to tell him twice. He scrambled off the bed and stood at the open doorway.

He watched as the officers slammed those sticks against each door they passed. He looked down the hallway to his left, and it was infinite to his eyes. There seemed to be no end. There had to be hundreds of people lined up at the doors, tired and sad, some wailing, some murmuring to themselves. Finnick leaned against the doorway to his room and looked to his right. He saw the same never-ending line. He spotted a few nurses standing further down and decided it would be best to stay in character.

"Rest assured, all, Finnick is here. I didn't mean to keep you waiting," he said loudly, shooting them all a large, apologetic smile. He received blank stares and glares in response.

It took an hour before the officers made it to the rooms across from Finnick's. They hit their stick against a door that was across the hall and three down from Finnick's. The hall fell eerily quiet as everyone waited for yet another person to take the rank, but nothing happened. The officers opened the door with a key card. Still, no movement. Finnick glanced up at the number above the door as they walked in. 70. Finnick turned and looked at his own. 65. He wondered how many rooms there were, and how many of these people would die inside of them.

"Get up!" An officer snarled from inside the room. There was the sound of something falling over, or maybe someone being pushed, and then the officers were pulling a seemingly lifeless girl tangled up in her own dark hair from the room. She allowed them to pull her to the doorway, but when one whispered something to her, her head snapped up to him and she glared at him with a ferocity that made Finnick concerned for the officer's wellbeing.

Once everyone was out of their rooms, the officers stood in the middle, and began to call roll. Finnick had expected some sort of acknowledgement that he was new, some sort of information on how the place worked. But he knew coming into this that he wasn't headed into a hospital. He was headed into a prison.

He scanned the faces of everyone in sight as their names were called. His eyes found that girl again when her name was called. She appeared to be completely empty.

"Anamaria Cresta!" They called off, and even though everyone turned to look at her, she didn't react in anyway. She just stared forward, her eyes locked on something Finnick couldn't see. She had lovely eyes that made him think of drowning.

After roll was finished, the officers said one final thing.

"All right, split into your groups and go about the day. New comer 65, you're in Group 4. New comer 89, you're in Group 11. New comer 54…"

Finnick blocked out the officer and began searching for a way to distinguish who was in this "Group 4" and who wasn't. When an officer came over and slid a bracelet around his wrist with a blue "FOUR" typed on it, everything was easier.

He spotted a scrawny boy with a FOUR and hurried over to him. Their group quickly filled, and soon most of the hallway had filed out.

"Where are they going?" Finnick asked his group.

"Breakfast." A girl answered nervously, picking at her cuticles that were already bleeding. She looked like she wanted to crawl her way out of her own skin.

Breakfast sounded good to Finnick, so he began to walk with them. He stopped when he caught sight of something in the corner of his eye. When he turned, he saw that the girl from room 70 was still standing in her doorway, her hands locked tightly over her ears. And on her wrist was the same bracelet they wore.

"Hey, that girl, she's—" he started.

"Not coming. She never comes." A man in his mid-forties answered. His voice was curt and emotionless. Finnick accepted the answer, but couldn't help but shoot a curious look over his shoulder as they walked away. If she never went to breakfast, how did she eat?

* * *

The answer came to him later that night, when she collapsed on her way to the bathroom.

He watched the doctors carry her down the hallway. Her arm hung limply, her bracelet almost sliding off her hand.

She didn't.

A boy named Peeta explained it to him in the bathroom. He wasn't in Finnick's group, he was in Group 12 according to the black print on his bracelet, but apparently he was the only one who had ever heard the girl speak before. He lived in 74, only a few down from the girl in 70. They both had been there for a very long time.

"It's not that she doesn't want to eat. It's that she doesn't want to go to the cafeteria." He whispered.

Peeta kept the faucet on to make the officers waiting outside think they were still washing their hands. Finnick tried to understand.

"Why not? If she doesn't go, she can't eat. Surely she'd rather go than starve to death?"

Peeta stared at the water.

"That's what I thought, too." He said. "But she told me she'd rather starve."

The officers stuck their heads in and yelled at them to hurry. Finnick wished he had more time to talk to Peeta. He was the first person who seemed to care that Finnick was new and seemed eager to help him. Finnick couldn't figure out exactly why he was here, though. For all intents and purposes, Peeta appeared completely stereotypically stable.

"What's so bad about the cafeteria?" Finnick asked.

The officers watched them suspiciously as they walked from the bathroom. Peeta whispered an answer to Finnick right before they walked off to their own rooms.

"She said she doesn't like the sound of gunshots."

Finnick shivered underneath his thin blanket that night, a terrible feeling in his gut. He kept replaying Peeta's words over and over again in his mind. He thought about the three meals he'd had in the cafeteria that day and didn't understand why she thought there were gunshots. Poor girl.

Finnick sighed and pulled the pillow over his head, willing himself to sleep, but then he remembered that there was no point. The next six months would be a series of waking up, standing for roll call, eating breakfast, doing "therapeutic activities" that turned out to really just be slave work for the city, lunch, "therapy sessions" which were really just the administering of subduing drugs, dinner, and "social time" that was spent under the watchful eyes and ears of the many officers. His head was spinning with all the new information he had learned, and even though he knew it was already infinitely more than he could have found out through normal research, he couldn't help but feel hopeless. How was he supposed to figure out how these people in here turned into those homeless people on the streets? How was he supposed to come to terms with the fact that generations have died in this place, and no one ever knew what it was really all about?

Youth was the time to make mistakes, but he found himself wondering if maybe he'd made too big of one this time.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/n: **Thank you all so much for the positive feedback! I hope you enjoy.

* * *

Finnick didn't have to wait very long at all to start getting some answers.

He called Dr. Mags and Dr. Abernathy after the first week inside. He held the toothbrush in the same hand as the receiver and quietly told them about all he'd seen. He could hear Dr. Mags quickly typing it up as Dr. Abernathy asked him questions.

"What kind of work do they make you all do?"

"I'm not sure about the other groups. Group 4 weaves. We just sit there and weave rope for hours."

"Rope? What kind of rope?"

"I think they're using it for their boats. Group 12 works with coal. As far as I know, they shovel it."

Dr. Abernathy mumbled something incoherent to himself.

"Okay, good. You're doing good, boy. Find out what the other groups do and find out what the ropes are for. What's the food like? Have they given you any medicine?"

Finnick heard the distant sounds of footsteps. He fell silent immediately, pressing the receiver to his chest to muffle Dr. Abernathy's voice. He stared at the slit underneath the door and waited until the footsteps passed by. They were allegedly allowed to use the phones in their rooms whenever they pleased, but Finnick didn't want them hearing that he was on the phone. If they knew he was using the phone, they'd start to wonder why their recording devices didn't have any records from his room.

Once it was quiet outside his door, Finnick lifted the phone back to his ear.

"The food's barely passable. The meat is labeled as beef or chicken or pork, but everyone knows it's wild dog or deer or rabbit or anything they can get their hands on for cheap, really. The vegetables are frozen and usually are still half frozen when served. There's no dairy. No fruit. Only water to drink, but most of the time it tastes rusty. But we are fed three times a day so at least there's that."

"You're going to need to see a doctor when you get out. If you even make it that far. We're pulling you out if you start to feel bad." Dr. Mags spoke up, her voice deeply worried.

"I'll be okay. They gave me medication today but I didn't take it. I hid it underneath my tongue. I'm keeping the pills in my room. But this is what's funny, Dr. Abernathy. They gave all of us the same medication."

Dr. Mags' typing stopped momentarily. Dr. Abernathy leaned in closer to the phone, so close that his breathing was now audible.

"The same medication?" He asked.

Finnick felt a chill shoot down his spine. He hadn't thought it was that big of a deal, but the seriousness in which Dr. Abernathy reacted made him reevaluate it.

"Well, it was the same pill. The same size, the same color, the same numbers etched on the top. They pulled them all from one giant jar. Each person got a different amount of them, according to some list, but it was the same medication."

Dr. Abernathy's voice was full of excitement.

"Fine the pill, boy. Quickly. Find it and tell us the numbers."

Finnick jumped to his feet and hurried over to the shelf. He had the clothes he wore coming in folded neatly on the third shelf and, in his pants pocket, were the pills. He grabbed one. It was late at night, so the only light came from the moon outside the small window. The overhead lights wouldn't come on until six AM. Finnick stood in the faint ray of light underneath the high window and peered closely at the pill.

"4…2…" he started, straining to make out the tiny etchings.

He was trying to determine whether it was a 3 or an 8 when he heard commotion outside the door. At first it was just fast-paced footsteps, but then he could see the shine of searching flashlights from underneath the door. Then shouts.

"GET THEM ALL OUT! NOW!" A voice bellowed.

Finnick barely had time to disconnect the call when he heard the doors around his room being forced open. He quickly hid the pill back underneath his clothes and put the phone back in its cradle on the wall. He curled up on top of his bed, the toothbrush still clutched in his hand. He forced his eyes to shut and his shoulders to relax right before his door was forced open.

"Out, 65!"

Still shaking from the adrenaline of almost getting caught, he all but ran to the open doorway. He stood there and peered curiously around, surprised to find that he was the only one who was curious at all. Some looked bored, some were hiding their faces, and others just had their eyes shut. A dark feeling washed over him at this sight.

Four officers marched into the middle of the hallway, two of them dragging along a small patient. She had red hair and tired eyes. They held her up like a rag doll.

"Attention, patients! This is Lavinia. Lavinia tried to escape."

Lavinia had the wild-eyed look of caught prey. She turned her eyes on everyone, pleading for them to help.

The officer continued. "Lavinia wants to be discharged. We can only assume that she forgot what discharge really means. To make sure none of you forget, we're going to refresh your memory once again."

Finnick felt his stomach drop to his toes as one of the officers restrained the young girl. Another pulled a small, sharp knife from his belt.

"The motto here at Capitol Institute is simple. We're the last who hear."

Finnick barely had time to look away as they pulled her tongue out and brought the knife down.

He shielded his eyes as she screamed. Her yelps were damp, soaked with blood, and Finnick knew if he looked up the floor would be as well. The officer continued to yell something over her screams, but suddenly all Finnick could hear was the sound of blood surging in his head.

He fell back into his small room, close to heaving, and from the floor all he could see were flashes of things. He saw people standing still. He saw the look of indifference on some of their faces. To them, this was nothing new.

The doors were closed a little later. Finnick sat in the middle of his bed. He knew what he was getting himself into. He did. Didn't he? So why couldn't he get the vision of her eyes from his head?

What must have been at least two hours later, he heard the sound of crying from out in the hallway.

Knowing that all doors were locked from the outside, he approached the small window on the door and peered out. Mopping up the blood all over the middle of the floor was a young girl in an officer's uniform two sizes too big for her. She had a wristband with the group number TWELVE printed on it, which meant she spent most of her time patrolling the grounds where Group 12 did their "activities". She had a long, black braid down her back and appeared to be sobbing.

Once she finished cleaning up the blood, she let the mop fall to the floor. She lifted the hem of her shirt to her mouth and began gasping.

"Lavinia, I'm so sorry." She whispered, her voice muffled.

But Finnick heard it.

In fact, it was the last time he heard that name ever again.

* * *

At breakfast the next morning, he asked a girl in Group 2 named Enobaria about her. She stared blankly at him.

"I don't know anyone named Lavinia."

But Finnick had seen her last night, her eyes fixed on the same nightmarish scene he had seen. The officer had said her name plenty of times. But when he tried to say this to her, she simply shook her head and repeated herself.

"I don't know anyone named Lavinia."

He asked six more people and received the same blank stares. At therapy time, the doctors gave him double the normal dosage.

Finnick was beginning to wonder if he had made the entire thing up himself.

* * *

Shower time was the only time Finnick was free to get answers.

The first few days, it had been horrifying for him. Being shoved in a concrete room with dozens of naked men sent him into panic attacks that resulted in him curling up underneath his bed, actually considering taking some of the blue pills he had stashed away on the shelf. But his friend from Group 12 caught onto his suffering early on.

"I'm OCD." He lied to him, when Peeta asked him on day three about it. "It makes me panic to be close to so many other dirty people."

And so Peeta showed him the far corner of the showers, where no one went because the shower heads there only put out lukewarm water at best. Finnick showered there, with the closest person being Peeta who was two spots away, and it was much better then.

Underneath the roar of the water, Finnick was able to ask Peeta the questions that had been building up.

"What happened to Lavinia?" He asked.

Peeta finished washing the shampoo from his hair and frowned at Finnick, glancing nervously behind him.

"What happens to anyone who tries to leave. She must have tried to phone the police."

Finnick took a moment to hope, once again, that Dr. Beetee had done a good job with the interceptor.

"Why do people act like they don't know who she is?" Finnick pressed.

"The rule is that once they are dismissed, they no longer exist." Peeta said. He took a step closer to Finnick, looking worried. "Have they done your Scoring yet?"

Finnick shook his head. "No, what's Scoring?"

Peeta's voice took on an urgent tone.

"During your first month, they do a test to determine your level of sanity. You need to do as poorly as possible on it." He said.

Finnick frowned at him. He had never told him he was only pretending to be mentally ill. Wouldn't Peeta think that he thought he was here to get better?

"But aren't I supposed to be getting better here?" He tried, his voice hesitant.

Peeta's eyes took on a sadness then that Finnick didn't want to ever have to understand.

"You're supposed to be staying here." He told him. "Some people here are mentally unstable. And the doctors here do whatever they can to keep it that way."

Finnick stared at him, a sinking feeling pulling him down. He almost felt like he might fall right through the floor.

"Some people?"

Officers entered the shower, insisting that time was up. Finnick followed everyone out, confused out of his mind, because this is a hospital for the mentally insane. Wouldn't _all _the people here be insane?

* * *

He forgot about the crying soldier until two days later. When he remembered, he found Peeta in the cafeteria and pulled him aside.

"Do you have a soldier in the coal rooms that wears her hair in a braid all of the time?" He asked him.

Peeta stiffened immediately. His voice grew hard.

"Yes. Why?" He demanded.

Finnick was thrown off by his actions and body language. He took a step back uneasily.

"I—nevermind." He said. He was suddenly wondering whether or not he should be trusting this man. After all, he didn't really know him.

"No, what? Why do you ask about her?"

"Because. Because I saw her crying after Lavinia…well. After Lavinia." He admitted quietly.

Peeta peered worriedly around them. He lowered his voice even more.

"You're going to get an even higher dosage for mentioning her name again." He warned him. Finnick almost admitted that he wasn't taking his medicine, but knew that wouldn't be a good idea at all. Peeta continued. "She was probably just shocked. She's new."

But the way Peeta nervously chewed on his bottom lip the rest of lunch made Finnick sure there was more to it than that.

* * *

At socialization hour that night, Finnick got the nerve to ask Peeta something else that he had been wondering.

"Peeta, why are you here?" He asked him.

Peeta blinked at him.

"Why are you here?" He shot back.

Finnick resisted the urge to wince. "Narcissistic Personality Disorder and OCD. I already told you."

Peeta looked down at the watery coffee in front of him. He stirred it and swallowed nervously, looking for a moment so upset that Finnick thought he might cry.

"I'm Schizophrenic now." He said.

Finnick stared.

"_Now_? What do you mean, now?" He demanded, even though subconsciously he knew that was something he wasn't supposed to comment on.

Peeta shifted them away from the topic effortlessly.

"Have you ever been to the bakery on Main Street?" He asked.

For the rest of the socialization period, Finnick and Peeta talked about everything but what Finnick needed to talk to him about. It turned out that Peeta's family used to own a bakery that Finnick's mother used to take him to on his birthday.

"My grandmother got me a cake from there, once. For my seventh birthday." Finnick remembered. He smiled and Peeta grinned back.

"I would have been too young to have helped make that one." He joked. "My dad didn't teach us until we were eleven. It was a big deal in our family, a sort of rite of passage." He paused. "Do you have a dad?"

The smile disappeared almost immediately from Finnick's face.

"No." He said shortly. "I had a step-father."

He hid his shaking hands underneath his thighs.

* * *

Finnick called Dr. Abernathy late that night. He updated him quickly on the new discoveries and hung up afterwards, his heart pounding as footsteps began walking down the hallway.

He slept fitfully. At breakfast the next morning, he kept nodding off over his meal. He was half asleep when he heard a loud sound that jarred him. He jerked up, peering wildly around, expecting to see someone opening fire on the crowd. It took him a moment to realize it was just the sound of the conveyor belt that carried away the dirty trays. It made a click-clack sound that faded into the background normally. He never really noticed it before, and now that he was fully awake, it didn't seem that jarring to him at all. But all of the sudden, the previously forgotten words of the girl from room 70 made sense to him.

Finnick was frightened of a lot of the people here, who seemed understandably unstable, but he knew in order to do this research properly he had to adequately integrate himself. And that would require being acquaintances with more than just Peeta Mellark who, regardless of what he said, seemed pretty stable.

At socialization time, Finnick waved at Peeta but didn't join him at their usual table. He stood at the doorway instead and scanned the crowds of people. He spotted the woman he was searching for after only a few moments of searching. She was sitting alone in the window sill of a window on the back wall. He swallowed nervously and stuck his hands in his pockets as he walked over to her.

She didn't even look up when he approached her. She was staring blankly at the fogged up glass. From this close up, Finnick could see things about her that he didn't see before. Her dark hair had lovely golden and crimson undertones to it, and fell in wild curls that he knew must be gorgeous under different circumstances. The sight of her wrist bones and collarbones made his heart ache though. Why didn't she just tell them the sound upset her? Why didn't they just fix it?

"Hello." He tried.

He waited for a few agonizing moments. She didn't even turn her head.

"Can you hear me?" He tried again, suddenly doubting for a moment that she could hear at all. But then she lifted her hands over her ears, and Finnick got the message pretty quickly. He frowned.

"Right, okay, sorry. I'll go away then."

Back at his normal table with Peeta, he asked him about the girl again.

"Why is she here, anyway?"

Peeta glanced past Finnick, towards the girl at the window.

"When she was fifteen, she witnessed the murder of her neighbor. He was a twelve year old boy. His drunken uncle beheaded him and then shot her."

Finnick brought his hand up to his mouth. He could only stare as his mind stalled. Of all the things he could have imagined, he never would have guessed it was something like that. He cursed underneath his breath and shut his eyes for a moment. No wonder that sound upset her.

"He shot her in her shoulder and then shot the rest of her family. She lay in the grass for hours, bleeding, screaming for help, before someone showed up. Or at least, that's what they say happened." Peeta finished.

"What do you mean?"

Peeta shrugged, a little too carelessly.

"I mean, I don't doubt those things really happened to her. There's just no saying exactly who caused them."

* * *

Finnick couldn't stop thinking about the girl from room 70.

He watched her while Group 4 was weaving ropes. She worked at a slower pace than most, but by the end of the session, she had always made more than everyone else somehow. As far as he could tell, nurses brought her food once a day, just to keep her conscious. He watched her periodically throughout the day, his curiosity getting the better of him. He never saw her talk to anyone, except for one night during free hours when a middle-aged woman entered her room. All their doors were required to stay propped open, so from Peeta's room Finnick could see her share a few sparse words with the woman. The exchange seemed difficult for both of them.

He had nightmares about what Peeta told him. He saw a little girl in a pink dress twirling around and around in circles. And then he saw a man lift a gun and shoot her. She stared at him, open mouthed, her hair sticking to her lips, her palm pressed to the wound, and then collapsed to the ground almost in slow motion. The blood started slow and then spread at an alarming rate. Bright red flowers blossomed on her dress. She lay in the bloody grass all night, staring at the head of her neighbor. Flies swarmed around it and landed on his glassy, open eyes. She screamed.

For three days after Peeta told him her story, it haunted him. He knew it was interfering with his purpose for being here, but he couldn't help it. It made him sad to know that no one cared. No one understood. She would wither away there and die and no one would even know she existed.

And that was why he smuggled the roll from his dinner back with him. They were unappetizing on the best days, and absolutely impossible to eat on the worst, but food nonetheless. He waited until the officers were otherwise occupied at socializing time and approached her, still perched at her window.

He held it out to her.

"Here." He said. But she didn't look at him.

He was nervous and wanted her to take it from him before he was caught. He struggled to remember her name. It took him a few seconds of replaying the morning roll call, but then it came to him.

"Anamaria," he whispered.

He almost dropped the food when her eyes suddenly met his. They were so distantly green that it hurt him, because he knew if she were all there, they'd be stunning.

She lowered her gaze to the food in his hands. And then looked back up at him. He felt worthless underneath her gaze. He didn't know what to say.

"I heard the gunshots in the cafeteria. I'm sorry." He finally murmured.

Her cracked lips parted, and for a moment he was breathless, thinking she was going to say something. But then she carefully reached forward and took the roll from him. She stared at him for a few long moments as she tucked the roll into her pocket, and he swore he heard her say thank you, even though she said nothing at all.

He retreated a few moments later, after she went back to looking out the window, but he felt better the rest of the night. Like he had done something good.

* * *

Over a week of running course strands of rope through his fingers had taken its toll.

Everyone filed out of the large, echoing room once the bell for lunch rang. Everyone except Finnick, who sat on his same hard stool, staring down at his hands lying palm-up on the tabletop. Blood was leaking steadily from the cracked, open skin. He couldn't even close his palm without excruciating pain. He cursed underneath his breath and tried to bring his mind back into perspective, but it seemed so awful. How was he supposed to weave ropes day after day if his hands were like this?

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against his forearms, letting out a sigh. The heaviness in his chest kept him pinned to the seat.

He didn't hear her approach, so when she suddenly set her hands on top of his, he lifted his head in surprise. She drew her hands back quickly, like she had burned him, and he was so shocked to see her interacting with someone or something that he just stared. And she stared back.

"Anamaria." He said, and he wasn't sure why he said it. But he knew she understood it was a greeting.

She glanced back down at his hands. His eyes were trained on her face when her lips parted for the second time, and this time, she spoke.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" She asked.

Her voice was soft and jagged from infrequent use. She kept her eyes trained on his wounds as she brought her fingers down onto them, gently tracing over the cracked skin. Finnick's heart was pounding. He wasn't sure whether he felt uncomfortable or excited.

"Yeah," he said, his voice colored with surprise.

She let go of his hands and leaned down. Finnick stared at the defined line of her spine for a moment, and then she was sitting back up, this time with a torn piece of cloth from her skirt. She tied it around his palm gently.

"Until the bleeding stops." She whispered.

And then she climbed off the stool and walked from the room.

* * *

Finnick was sure he would never hear anything from Anamaria again.

But that night during socialization, she approached him. She wordlessly sat down beside him and pulled his hand into her lap. He stared at the way the light puddled on her face as she untied the fabric and applied some sort of cream to the skin. The pain almost immediately eased, and Finnick was so relieved he wanted to hug her. It had been a very long time since someone had taken care of him. It had been way before he checked himself in here.

"Thank you." Finnick told her.

She looked up at him, her eyes somehow clearer than they were the day before.

"Thank you for hearing the gunshots." She said.

Finnick examined her face. Her lips were so cracked, probably from dehydration, and her cheekbones were more defined than they probably should have been. But somehow she looked beautiful to him. Maybe because he was desperate to find beauty somewhere.

"Why don't you tell them? Maybe they could fix it so it doesn't make that sound." He said hesitantly.

She smiled, abruptly, and it made her face light up in a way Finnick hadn't expected.

"I have. That's why it's gotten louder."

Finnick didn't know what to say to that.

She looked down at her feet. Finnick took a few deep breaths and then began speaking.

"Anamaria...I'm alone here, and scared, and I'd like a friend. I'd like to be your friend. Do you think you would like that too?"

It was true, and the realization that it was true hit him like a shock. He was suddenly crippled by the knowledge of just how lonely he really was, and just how lost. He was stuck in here for a little over five more months. Five months without Jo, without Dr. Mags. Without anyone. He couldn't help but wonder how long she had been here, all alone. Since she was fifteen? She had to be at least twenty now.

She didn't look up at him, but he saw her cheek lift a little as she smiled.

"I don't go by Anamaria. I used to go by Annie." She said, and somehow, Finnick understood this to be a yes.

"I used to go by Finn." He answered. Before his step-father's roulette wheel of friends and cigarette burns on his Sunday best and _lights, camera, action. _He stared at his patched-up hand and slowly made it into a fist, until he felt a sharp sting of pain that brought him back to this reality. "Now I'm room 65."

He saw her lift her hand from the corner of his eye and forced himself not to jump as she set it on his shoulder. He noticed then, uncomfortably, that she was a little more tactile than most. She seemed to touch him with the assurance and comfort of a familiarity that they did not have. He figured it was from being locked up here so long, without anyone to become familiar with at all. Her hand slid from his shoulder to his collarbone and then ghosted up his neck. He resisted the urge to shiver. She found her destination at the spot below his right ear, where he had a scar that he didn't talk about. Couldn't talk about. She touched it so softly that he wasn't even entirely sure she was actually touching him at all. And he had to smile at her, because just as she probably no longer remembered when or how to touch, he no longer knew when or how to accept those touches. Social tact was an art long forgotten inside of an asylum and the minds of the ill.

"Now I'm just crazy." She told him, and when she smiled again, her eyes were watery and wide like the sea.

He wished he were really crazy, too, so he could get away with grabbing her and asking her:_ what happened? what did they do? what did they do?_

They were all dropping hint after hint after hint, but all it was doing was making him scared. He wanted to know what was going on. He wanted to run home. He wanted Johanna or Dr. Mags or even Dr. Abernathy.

"Me too." He told her. But that made her smile disappear so quickly that it was almost as if her face had shattered.

"No you aren't." She told him. These words made him glance around them in worry, but no soldiers were nearby. When he looked back at her, she was nervously pulling at her hair. She seemed to be wincing in pain, and Finnick had a bad feeling the pain was coming from memories. "Not yet."

He couldn't call Dr. Abernathy that night, because he was afraid he would beg him to come save him.


	3. Chapter 3

He quickly fell into the routine of Capitol Institute.

He had always been flexible and able to adapt to new environments with startling ease. His first few months of college were not difficult in the least, but he theorized that that was because he was leaving nothing good behind at all. He had never really had a home to begin with, and so he learned how to handle being perpetually homeless. Home never existed for him in the first place.

He grew accustomed to the mattress, to the barely audible click the lights made when shutting on and off, to the gunshots of the conveyor belt in the lunch room, to the people around him. He grew accustomed to hearing crying at night. He grew accustomed to showering with dozens of men, to tucking pills underneath his tongue, to sneaking Anamaria Cresta a roll each night. This was simply another place for him to rest his head, another place to get tested at. When Peeta asked him why he seemed so okay when newly admitted patients were normally crying, begging to go home by the first night, he shortly told him that everywhere was better than the house he grew up in.

But things were slowly growing more and more uncomfortable, because by the third week, his friendship with Peeta began to grow. They went from casual friends who chatted about normal, everyday occurrences to being on the brink of being real, actual friends, who know secrets. And Finnick hadn't told anyone a secret in three years. The last person he told a secret to was Dr. Mags, and only then because he was crying too hard to not offer up an explanation.

He started slowly spending less and less time with Peeta. He made a few new friends, ones that he was confident would never care enough about him to be curious about his past, and spent time with them during mealtimes. And during social hour, he sat quietly with Anamaria Cresta, who didn't have much to say most of the time. And Finnick liked it that way. Until he realized that he was beginning to turn into the betrayer instead of the betrayed. He realized this when he did to her exactly what he was trying to keep people from doing to him.

"What do you miss the most about the outside world?" He asked her.

They were sitting side by side in her windowsill. The glass was freezing Finnick through his thin shirt, but Annie seemed not to notice. She was perpetually dazed, staring off into the distance, examining something he couldn't see so intently that he longed to see what it was. It had to be something extraordinary. Considering the fact that she was given seven pills each day, he was sure it was. The head of the chemistry department, Dr. Seeder, identified the pill as a type of anti-psychotic. Its main effects were a dazed feeling and a strong sense of contentment. Its desired effect, no doubt, was to leave the patients so content that they didn't even care that they had no grip on reality. From what Finnick could see of the other patients, it worked. At night, when their dosages were wearing off, was when they all became hysterical.

Finnick figured Annie was fighting against the medication somehow, because they seemed to up her dosage each week. He wasn't even sure how she was even conscious right now. As far as he knew, she was taking the medicine each day. He described her as a "fighter" when he updated Dr. Abernathy on his new friendships.

He had to repeat his question one more time before Annie seemed to realize he was addressing her. She shrugged and then leaned closer to him. She rested her head against his shoulder and pressed her face against his neck, hiding it, and Finnick was almost used to that now. He didn't jump this time or feel panicky at all. He merely rested his arm around her shoulders lightly.

"I miss the sea." He whispered to her, a few moments later. "But here's not so bad."

She leaned against him for five minutes, silently. Her body was hot against his, and he was beginning to sweat when she finally sat up. She looked at him, but even then he felt as if she wasn't really seeing him. She seemed to act as if she were in a dream.

"I miss chocolate." She said, and for some reason, Finnick couldn't help but laugh at that. Of all the things, she missed chocolate. But after a few peals of laughter, it hit him just how sad that was. She didn't miss sunsets or sunrises or freedom. She didn't miss her family or her friends or her pets. She missed something as largely insignificant as chocolate.

But then he realized that he said he missed something relatively insignificant, too, and that had him second guessing himself.

He thought about that conversation for the rest of the night. And by the time the lights flickered out and the first whimpers began sliding underneath the crack beneath his door, he came to understand a mad girl's revelation. The small, seemingly insignificant things like chocolate or the sound of waves crashing against the shore _are_ the big things.

* * *

They came for him early in the morning. He shouldn't have been surprised, because he was nearing the end of his first month and he knew the Scoring had to take place sometime before then, but he was more frightened than he thought he would be.

He was placed in a restraining wheelchair, his feet clamped to the footrests and his arms tied to the arms, and rolled through the long, gray hallways. The soldier pushing him didn't say a word. He could hear at least one other was following behind that one. He didn't even realize the soldier with the braid was there until they were in the elevator. She reached forward and pressed the "1".

The elevator ride was silent. When the doors opened once more, he was pushed down a short hallway with red walls and left in front of a set of heavy, wooden double doors.

The soldier that had been pushing him began to untie him, but the soldier with the braid took over.

"No, you go ahead up. I can do it this time." She said.

The other soldier hesitated.

"Have you been through your restraining classes?" He asked suspiciously.

"Yes. You can ask Soldier Hawthorne if you don't believe me."

Finnick listened to the sound of the other soldier's retreating footsteps. Once he was in the elevator and far from them, she began untying Finnick quickly. Once he was free, she turned his chair so they were facing each other and kneeled down so they were eye to eye. Her eyes were like full moons, gray and brimming with fear.

"You have to lie." She whispered to him, her voice so soft that he practically had to read her lips to see what she was saying. Her eyes were pulling the tide of his fear and he was afraid it would take him under.

Finnick knew they didn't have much time. He just wasn't sure what he should ask her first. He needed to ask her about Lavinia, about why she was sorry, about what he was supposed to lie about, about what the hell this place was.

"Who was Lavinia?" He settled on.

"She's who you're going to be if you don't lie." She hissed, quickly and urgently, and she barely had time to straighten up and turn around when the wooden doors began opening.

A woman in sterile, white clothes stood in the open doorway, her face expressionless.

"Follow me, Finnick Odair."

He rose unsteadily from the wheelchair and shot one last glance at the soldier as he walked cautiously forward. She was watching him nervously, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, and she whispered something inaudible that he couldn't catch.

The wooden doors slammed shut after him with an air of finality. What he saw behind them made him halt immediately, his breath leaving him in shock. The room seemed to go on forever. He could see no far wall, no end to the rows and rows of metal beds. And on each one was a patient, restrained and supine, staring at the ceiling silently with a haunted expression.

_Okay, _Finnick thought, _now I'm scared. _

The woman that had been leading him gave him a stern look.

"This way, Finnick Odair." She ordered him. Something about her tone told him that he would do better to follow her orders than to see what happens to those who don't. He forced his feet forward and trailed behind her, between two of the many rows of beds. The people on the beds didn't even glance towards them as they walked past. Finnick walked into one on purpose, just to see if he could get a reaction from one of them, but the person didn't even blink.

"What's wrong with them?" He asked, because he couldn't help it. He forgot momentarily that he was supposed to be as crazy as possible. What had they done to these people?

She turned to look at him. She offered him a smile.

"They're being Scored." She explained.

He considered bolting. Right then, he understood the full gravity of his situation. He checked himself, willingly, into this place where no one has ever been known to leave. He might have been cocky to assume he could make it out just fine when so many others hadn't. What did he have on his side, really? Dr. Abernathy? Dr. Mags? Dr. Beetee? How much was a free ride to graduate school worth in the end, compared to his tongue (or his sanity, or his life?).

He realized that there was no getting out of this now. As much as he wanted to run, he couldn't. All he could do was accept all the advice Peeta had given him and put on the best act of his life.

They headed towards a steel door on the right wall closest to them. Finnick averted his eyes from the never-ending landscape of suffering patients and turned his expression instead on the opening door. He caught a glimpse of a couch, a potted fern, lavender walls…

When he walked through the doors, he was momentarily shocked by the normalcy. It looked like any other therapist's office (he would know, he'd been to plenty of them). And yet this made him even more uneasy. He didn't know what to expect, now.

"Dr. Snow will be in to see you now." The woman told him, and Finnick didn't have to act at all once those words were out of her mouth. He felt himself visibly pale and he grew sick to his stomach.

"Excuse me?" He breathed.

She blinked and then smiled so wide he could almost see all her teeth.

"Dr. Snow. He's the head psychiatrist." She explained.

She left after that, shutting the door shut behind her. Finnick idly recognized the elevator music playing softly in the background, but it was difficult to hear much over the roaring in his head. _Snow. _It wasn't a common last name, was it? How could he have that certain name?

He paced back and forth along the expensive carpet as he waited. He scratched nervously at his forearms and tried to practice deep breathing, like an old therapist had taught him, but he wasn't getting anywhere. By the time the door opened, he was nearing hysterics.

The man who walked in was not the Snow that Finnick was expecting. This Snow was not a middle-aged man with a pot belly and yellow teeth from too many cigarettes. He was an elderly man, with snow-white hair and an unsettling smile. Finnick continued to pace, because he couldn't stop now. It had been set in motion, and now it was scream or pace, and pacing was probably better.

"Hello, Finnick." The man said, in an almost kindly manner.

Finnick glanced at him briefly and then began to pace quicker.

"Hello." He said shortly.

"_Finnick! Come see who came to play with you." _

Finnick stopped dead in his tracks, his arms breaking out in goosebumps.

"What?" He breathed, his eyes wide as he turned to the doctor.

The old man blinked at him.

"I didn't say anything, Finnick." He said.

Finnick stared hard at him.

"Of course. Sorry." He mumbled.

The man smiled.

"Not at all. Would you like to take a seat?"

Finnick huffed and crossed his arms uneasily. He scratched the back of his neck and shifted from foot to foot. Finally, after a few moments of indecision, he nodded stiffly. The doctor kept that same smile on his face as Finnick fell down into the seat across from his desk. He tried not to look at the name plate.

"So you checked yourself in, did you?" He started.

Finnick shook his head a few times, until the memories started to leave him alone. He nodded.

"Yes. I need to be here. I am crazier than all of them." He muttered. He was beginning to feel worried that he wasn't having to pretend that much after all.

The man nodded. "Of course. We don't get many volunteer check ins. I must say I was surprised." _And suspicious. _Finnick could hear the words even though they weren't said.

"Well, I heard about how everyone here was gettin' all kinds of stuff for free, so I figured I deserved that, you know? And I knew they all needed me to get better."

The doctor leaned back in his chair, peering at Finnick with mild interest.

"I see that you were diagnosed with a personality disorder. You strike me as a bit more level headed than I would have expected."

Finnick forced himself to look at the name and let himself really think about it. _Snow. _Dirty baseballs and peeling wallpaper. _Snow. _Yellow fingernails and screamed curses. _Snow. _White powder and video cameras.

He felt sick once more.

"I don't want to talk anymore." He said, and it was the truth. He doubled over and gripped his stomach, slightly disturbed that it was only here, pretending to be insane, that he was able to really be himself.

"That's okay. You won't have to do much talking soon. But first, we need to gain an element of trust, you and I. Doctors can't help their patients unless their patients trust them, you see. And as a doctor, I need to trust that you are always being honest with me." He began.

Finnick stared at the carpet, still doubled over. He was too afraid to meet his eyes, which suddenly appeared quite snakelike to him.

"So it is very simple. I need you to tell me your worst memory, and if you lie to me, I will know. And it will be quite detrimental for your recovery. I want to help you."

Finnick counted the different shades of plum in the carpet. His worst memory? He heard the shrieking of children and the melodic songs of a merry-go-round before looking up at the doctor, his face ashen.

"I can't pick just one." He said, and it was partially the truth.

The doctor smiled. "Sure you can. It's what you think about right after you wake up from a nightmare. It's what you judge every situation based on. When you think: "This isn't as bad as…" the situation you complete that sentence with is your worst memory. It's what has hurt you the most."

Finnick knew that this was a test of his sanity, somehow, but he wasn't sure how. What would a crazy person answer? What would be a crazy person's worst memory? For all he knew, he really was crazy, so maybe it was best to answer truthfully. But his truthful answer was not in alignment with his alleged mental disorders.

He rubbed his palms on his thighs nervously.

"When I was in middle school, I got so terrified that I peed my pants in front of the entire school." He said. "They all laughed at me for the rest of my schooling career."

It was a half-lie and a half-truth. It really happened to him, and it was an awful memory, but the real terrible memory was what caused that one to happen in the first place. But the idea of being terrified of being laughed at fit more with his supposed mental problems.

Dr. Snow made a tsk-tsk sound with his tongue.

"You have one more chance to tell the truth." Was all he said. "I will know in five minutes what it really is, anyway."

Finnick was beginning to panic. What would an insane person fear? What would their worst memory be? What was the answer to this? More importantly, what would he do to him if he caught him lying?

Peeta's and Annie's words come back to him then. No matter what, he couldn't let them get into his head. He couldn't let them make him crazier. He couldn't hand him the keys.

"That's really it. I have nightmares about their laughter, sometimes." He whispered.

Dr. Snow's infuriating grin didn't cease. He rose from his desk abruptly.

"Well, Mr. Odair. We'll see about that, won't we? Please follow the nurse back out. I'm done with you."

As if she were called, the door opened immediately, and the same nurse came back in.

"Come on, Finnick Odair." She said.

Finnick almost missed being called 65.

He followed her back out into the room, only this time, she led him to the row with empty tables. He knew where this was going before she even said anything. He made up his mind to do the best he could.

"Up onto the table, please." She asked him.

Finnick hoisted himself up. His palms were so sweaty that he slipped the first time. When he was lying flat on his back, he tried not to scream as they locked restraints around his wrists and ankles. He felt like every cell in his body was screaming and he wanted nothing more than to jump up and run.

The nurse pulled a small box labeled _65_ from her shoulder bag. Inside, she pulled out a syringe. Finnick could do nothing to stop her as she injected something into him.

"Science has come so far. They would never guess on the outside." She told him.

And then she was gone, and he was standing on the stage in his middle school.

They were three minutes away from walking across the stage for eighth grade graduation. Finnick was in his only pair of khakis, trying not to care that his had stains and holes while his classmates were pristine and, most likely, brand new. This was the best he had been able to come up with.

A friendly classmate clapped him on his shoulder as the music began to play.

"We're almost out of here," he acknowledged. "Thank God."

That was one emotion Finnick shared. The closer he got to high school graduation, the happier he was, because that meant he was almost free from his home.

They began calling the names, starting with Monoric Acerie. Finnick was unhappy to be an Odair, because he just wanted this over with. Each cheer each student's family gave off made his chest feel heavier and heavier. He was already anticipating how embarrassing it was going to be when he was called, and the entire auditorium was silent.

He took a deep breath after they called Norris. And then it was his name being yelled out across the auditorium, and his heart was pounding so loudly in his ears that he could almost convince himself he did hear the sound of applause.

Each step he took onto the stage was difficult. The stage lights from above were emitting a heat that made him feel even more uncomfortable. He tried to angle his hips a little to the left so no one could see the rip in the leg of his pants. Across the stage, he could see the principal leering at him with a fake smile. He took her cold hand and shook it once, trying not to cringe as she pulled him in for a brief hug.

"Great job, Finnick." She whispered.

But he knew that none of them had any idea just how much of a great job it was. Statistically, he never should have made it this far. Statistically, he knew there was a very slim chance he would graduate high school. College was almost certainly out of the question, both for monetary and personal reasons, even if sometimes he dreamed with an acute longing for the chance to go. But he didn't care about anything as long as he was free.

He shook the Superintendent's hand and then was gently pushed to the center of the stage, where he had to stand in front of the audience while people from the county newspaper snapped photos of him. He held his diploma like they taught during rehearsal and tried not to blush as they read out the standard "synopsis" of each student.

_Finnick Odair is heading to high school with a Star Student award for the subject of history. He also received three awards for excellent performance in the school's Swim Team. _

People clapped politely, but Finnick wanted to tell them to stop. He didn't need their pity claps. He wanted scream: _Stop clapping! I'm not on the Swim Team anymore because my mother's husband wouldn't let her buy the forty dollar bathing suit. I got the Star Student award because I was the only student who actually did my homework. I only did my homework because, as long as you're doing school work, the city library will let you stay in for as long as you choose. I only stayed at the library for eight hours a day because I couldn't go home, because my mother was too busy jabbing needles into her veins and then spending the rest of the night hysterically plotting how she was going to get the next fix, and the next—_

But that was too much. It was too much for him, so he knew it would be too much for them.

And everything was going okay. He hadn't tripped, hadn't gotten laughed at because of his terrible clothing. His mother couldn't be bothered to show up, but he had long stopped being disappointed because of that. Now he was glad when she didn't.

That all changed when most people sat back down into their seats, and there was one man still standing, clapping almost sarcastically with his eyes trained on Finnick and a sickening smile on his face.

Finnick could only stare at him. He was aware, somewhere in the back of his mind, that it was time for him to leave the stage. But he was bound to the stare of this man who wasn't supposed to be there.

And then the man in the audience, nicknamed _Snow _by his friends for the drug he was so found of, mouthed four words to Finnick. _See you at home. _

Finnick, sick with fear and shaking with terror, didn't even realize he had peed until the first peal of laughter rang out. At first he thought they were laughing because he wasn't leaving the stage, but then he felt the warmth spreading all the way down his legs. He glanced down and felt his heart tumble. When he glanced back up, his stepfather was still standing there, but this time he was laughing along with everyone else.

The school counselor hurried onto stage and wrapped a bony arm around his shoulders. She ushered him off stage, but he could already hear the taunts from his classmates. He already knew there was no coming back from this. Elementary school children peed their pants; eighth graders didn't. Not even if their abusive stepfather, who was supposed to be in jail for illegal drug use for six more months, was standing in the audience. Not even if he couldn't stop—couldn't forget—couldn't let go of all the things that haunted him at night.

It took him a few minutes of fervent insistence, but he finally convinced the counselor he was just nervous about being on stage in front of so many people. Once she was gone, he ran back into the main hallway inside the school building and disappeared into the bathroom. He hit the dirty tiles, ruining his pants even more, and vomited into the toilet.

He shook like he was seizing for three hours, hidden in that bathroom, until a janitor found him and told him he had to go home.

The problem was that home didn't exist.

* * *

The first thing Finnick noticed was how cold the metal table was against the back of his head.

When he began seeing again, he couldn't move due to the shame and pain weighing him down like some sort of weight.

The memory was as new to him now as it had been the day it happened. He tried to tell himself that that was in the past, that it was no big deal at all, but it didn't feel that way. He shook against the restraints and felt the backs of his eyes burning. Whatever drug they had injected induced such a vivid memory that, for a moment, Finnick thought he had somehow gone back in time. He had no idea how the drug called back that one specific memory, but he was breathlessly grateful that it had stopped there and not continued. He didn't want to have to relive what happened that night when he got home. But more than anything, he was grateful that he hadn't told them his real worst memory.

A nurse came by a little later. It was a different nurse than before. She stood beside him, clipboard in hand, and asked him a very odd question.

"Do you want to go now?"

As if he had a choice. But the more Finnick tried to comprehend that question, the stronger that relived memory became, until he was almost entirely certain he had peed his pants again and that his stepfather was waiting for him just inside the other room.

"I just want to forget." He told her, and then he couldn't stop the words, because his panic was rising. It had been rising for years and he couldn't take it silently any longer. "God dammit! Why can't I just forget?" And when he started crying, he heard her tell another nurse that he wouldn't be needing another round. And then he was given a score of 9.

He couldn't feel much of anything as they led him from the room. His entire body ached, and every few feet, he'd remember that smirk on his stepfather's face and the sound of everyone laughing while he plotted exactly what to do to him when he got home and no one cared—

This time, he took the medication without even thinking about it. Two pills, the same as always.

By the time he was back in his room, he suddenly didn't care about anything at all. He spread out on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, numb and feeling oddly like he wasn't even really in his body. It took him hours to convince himself he needed a sip of water, and then he had to yell the command at himself in his mind three times before his body would listen.

But he didn't think about the memory anymore, and so maybe the drugs were a good thing after all. He didn't feel anything bad any longer, just a deep exhaustion and ease.

It wasn't until the next morning, when the drug's effects had worn off and he was waking up on the floor of his room, that he understood.

An "insane" person, as incorrectly assumed by the people in this institution, would have supposedly offered up their worst memory with relative ease after being intimidated by Dr. Snow. A "sane" person would have supposedly had reservations, fearing the worst about what he would do to them, because they would have realized something wasn't quite right. But the real test was how the memory affected the patient. In the minds of those in charge here, those who were okay after the memory replay were the sane ones, because they were perceptive enough to give a fake false memory, just in case. Or, in the case of those sane but honest, had the emotional stability to handle reliving the worst moment of their lives (sometimes multiple times). And the insane ones were the ones, like Finnick, who crumbled to pieces after the Scoring. Those who took the medicine eagerly and expressed no real care about their wellbeing afterwards ("Do you want to go now?" "I just want to forget."). Those who, when faced with the memory, learned that in the time that had passed, they didn't grow stronger emotionally at all. They didn't handle it any better the second time. They were weaker.

He knew there had to be a handful of outliers, those who didn't fit this system well. Those who were stronger than anticipated and handled it all, or those who were so disorientated about reality that they couldn't be touched. Or those that were pushed too far past their limit to return. But Finnick had known for a long time what they did to those people. They gave them more rounds of that memory-inducing drug until they broke and then upped their dosages.

He thought about Annie then, who was given seven pills a day. What was it with her, then? Did she enter here sane enough to lie about her worst memory, until Dr. Snow eventually pulled it from her? Or did she tell them her worst memory, thinking like most that he actually wanted to help her? And when she was forced to relieve it over and over again, that sticky blood-coated night spent in the damp grass, did she stay strong despite? Did they have to give her seven pills to keep her subdued enough not to cause trouble? Or did the pain of reliving that so many times break her to the point where they had to keep her drugged to keep her functioning?

Finnick didn't call Haymitch to report his findings that day, because suddenly, he was too terrified to touch the phone and too tired to care.


End file.
